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From The Times

December 7, 2007

The best houses of 2007

Marcus Binney finds that houses in the Cotswolds are a cut above the rest as he reviews his top five

IT has been a bumper year for ravishing historic houses, with superb examples of all periods on the market. The irony is that the two houses in a class of their own have yet to sell. Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire, the one country house securely attributable to England's greatest architect, Sir Christopher Wren, is a masterpiece, for which Jackson-Stops & Staff is asking £3million. Not only is Tony Blair not thinking of moving in after all, but the agent has not received a single offer.

Chicheley Hall, also in Buckinghamshire, ranks almost as heavenly in terms of the comfort and good taste it offers. It has been on the market since June; now that Knight Frank and Savills have brought the price down from £9million to £7million offers are coming in. No house is perfect, but if these houses were in Gloucestershire — the heart of the Cotswolds — both would have sold quickly for at least half as much again.

John Vaughan, of Savills, says that “the hedge fund manager likes to go where he has some mates”. As well as Hampshire and Gloucestershire, that means Oxfordshire (still the magic of the Cotswolds) and West Sussex. Yet Winslow and Chicheley have an abundance of unspoilt countryside on their doorstep — Chicheley borders the pastoral country along the Ouse, and Winslow is down the road from “Rothschildshire”, including the great family treasure house at Waddesdon Manor.

True, the ground floor of a wing at Winslow is leased to the local Roman Catholic congregation (a sure hit with the Blairs, one might think), and Chicheley looks a little close to Milton Keynes on the map, but both are within a 90-minute drive of London and still faster by train. It's not as if Buckinghamshire is without a new generation of tycoons. The high-flying property magnate Anton Bilton is at Tyringham Hall, where he has created a deer park; the millionaire businessman Paul Matthews has rescued noble Thame Park from decay; and now the property entrepreneur James Perkins is installed at Aynhoe Park, just across the Northamptonshire border. These are guys who know a good investment when they see one.

Others of my favourites sold quickly. Lutyens's Folly Farm, in Berkshire, blending William and Mary with Surrey Arts & Crafts, is another superb house a little close to the road (although you wouldn't know it once you are inside). This was on offer for £6million with Knight Frank and stands in one of the country's most splendid Edwardian formal gardens.

Thanks to the buoyancy of Manchester, the market in Cheshire is as strong as in Hampshire or Gloucestershire. My favourite this year was the 15th-century Gawsworth Old Rectory. This is in best Cheshire black and white, with a spectacular 27ft-high great hall. It sold to a local buyer for close to the asking price of £2.95million.

I have always had a penchant for follies, and the star this year was Rodborough Fort, a Victorian castle-style folly set in a breathtaking position on the edge of a 300-acre common run by the National Trust. From the windows you look across the Severn estuary to the Black Mountains. Both the interior and the garden needed a lot of work but it sold close to the guide price of £1.85million. The lesson is: if you're willing to be a little adventurous, the best houses do not all come at a premium.